Prescription
by musubi7
Summary: As an adult, Shawn Spencer strays away from most forms of pain medicine, but why? Detective O’Hara thinks it has something to do with his past--a past he isn't too keen on sharing.
1. Chapter 1

He didn't notice it at first. He was 13 at the time, what _could_ he have noticed? But it was there. His father had lost a stride in his step. He wasn't as graceful, wasn't as smooth, wasn't as aware. There was always something distracting, something that took his father's attention away from what was going on _right now_. It was just a glimmer, an extra strain in his father's features, unseen by an untrained eye or, in this case, an eye trained only to a certain level.

He was only 13, what could he have seen? What was he supposed to see?

Hindsight is always 20/20. Now into his adult years, he can see it clearly. The staggered walking. The labored breathing at times. The pauses. The winces. The often-too-long leanings on counters. Clues, evidence, pieces of a puzzle that were all there, spread out for him. A Higher Deity must have said, _Take your pick, Shawn, all paths lead to the same result._

He feels guilty for not seeing it before.


	2. Chapter 2

-------Musubi's Fried Rice Corner-----------

So....chapter 2. I threw this on here just to add some sustinence to the fic. Just 100 words after a while with such a vague opening can be quite bothersome. So, here's chapter 2. This was my favorite and the hardest to write. One of my favorite techniques is overloading sentences and paragraphs with information. The desired effect is usually spot on but it can be a bit difficult to read. If you can pull through it, major props to you; but please, let me know as an unbiased reader what you think of that particular technique.

Your reviews make me a better writer, so please--don't be afraid to concrit. Thanks! ^_^

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He was 13 years old and his mother was away at a criminal psychology conference in San Louis Obispo.

He and his best friend Gus were playing in the backyard. He couldn't remember what they were playing though. Couldn't remember what they were wearing. What part of the backyard were they in? Was he putting off homework? Couldn't even remember the weather.

Shawn Spencer remembered _everything. _He could remember what he ate for breakfast, what was on the radio, how the weather was on a day twenty five years ago, but couldn't remember this day, only its black date on a white calendar: January 21st, 1992.

There was a crash in the kitchen, he knew this for certain. Artifacts that either boy handled were discarded as they ran inside, Shawn leading. The child threw the screen door and stopped cold, blood frozen solid. His beating heart and lungs now somewhere beneath his feet. Shawn didn't feel his child friend run into his back. Didn't hear Gus ask what happened. He could only see…only see and breathe.

A broken white ceramic plate. Chips peppering the beige floor. A hand…his father's hand…arm…his father's arm.

_How many hats, Shawn?_

Henry to some. Mr. Spencer to most. Sergeant Spencer to the city.

Dad to him.

His father: stern to the point of emotional neglect, but always strong; the person who pushed him (though he'd never admit to liking the pushing); the man who always had a lesson, something to teach his son; the man who at least made an effort to be _there_.

_How many hats, Shawn?_

This man was sprawled on the linoleum floor, face twisted into deep contours of pain and rage. Sweat beaded his forehead. His father looked into Shawn's face. A man who knew no fear had only terror and anguish etched into his steel blue eyes. Panic seized the child's chest cavity, filling the void with flashing hot and cold. His hands tingled and shook. A single movement, a partial breath, a blink could shatter the world.

_How many hats, Shawn?_

"Dad?" the child's voice cracked and raw, vocal chords in the dirt, getting stepped on, somewhere near his heart and lungs. His voice broke in a waver, a key, unlocking the tears he refused to cry in front of his father. A quick wrist-swipe removed the bead from the scene and he was back in control. Never mind his small fist shook the entire time.

"Shawn—" his father said, voice heavy and grated. The child nodded. "Call the ambulance."

"Dad…what's going on? What happened?"

"Shawn," another labored breath. "Call the ambulance."

"But dad—"

"_Shawn Spencer call the goddamned ambulance!"_

His father never swore at him.

His father never looked at him with that kind of intensity.

The ice in Shawn's veins melted.

He ran.

Now for his next trick, _The_ _Amazing_ _Screw Up Spencer_ will find the mounted and wired house phone.

_How many hats, Shawn?_

He stumbled through the lower half of his home as if a blind paraplegic but saw everything, felt everything.

The peeling wall paper in the corner the right corner and the spider nest with eggs about to hatch the blue-green carpet with a Coke stain in the back by the brown and ugly couch he never liked next to the oak end table and matching coffee table with a knick in it because it was his mom's and the people who moved her stuff weren't all that great and he knows this because she's told him the story a hundred million times while joking about why she actually married his father. Antiseptic carpet cleaner still prominent in the air and so was the bleach stain remover his dad tried to put on the Coke stain but it still remained because it was as stubborn as its drinker and dust flittering through the room skin and hair and ancient stories floating through the air dead. There were three other children playing in the street a prepubescent girl about his age two boys slightly older one was not from California and had an accent he tried hard to suppress and was evident in his forced words and reluctant pauses and the boys were on bikes clinking their bells because they were young and still enjoyed to hear that sound the swells of the Pacific crashed almost lazily on the sandy brown shore almost laughing with the seagulls who were always too loud always too loud always drowning his thoughts dead.

Dead.

_How many hats, Shawn?_

A voice.

"_Yes ma'am. There's been some sort of accident. My friend's dad has fallen. He needs medical attention right away."_

Gus's voice.

The world that had once been so acute, so painfully obvious and aware and just _there_ out in the open had shut down and he was in a cold, grey void. The child collapsed next to the couch, though he never felt his body touch ground.

Gus joined him. They just sat. Didn't talk. Didn't look at each other. Just breathed. In, out. Out, In.

In years to come, he would recognize Gus' simple act as the single gesture that kept him tied to the Earth. Gus was always like that though, the last barrier between Shawn's recklessness and the world. A calibrator—Gus was Shawn's calibrator, the one that always brought him back to center.

The child didn't hear his father scream in wretched pain.

He didn't hear shoulder wrenching, gut twisting, paradoxical sobs from the kitchen floor.

He didn't feel the seconds cling and leech to his skin.

He didn't hear the comforting sirens sing _I'm here! I'm here! I'm here!_

He didn't see the red-blue glow accompanying the music.

He didn't hear the door open.

He didn't see the stretcher come in, accompanied by four hurry-urgent-hurry men in blue shirts and blue pants and black-maybe-navy-blue-shoes.

_How many hats, Shawn?_

Henry Spencer was curled into the fetal position, crying he was _crying_ still _sobbing_ violently _sobbing_. The child looked away.

The EMT men talked while they worked. Their words were rushed and recognizable only from health class. They spoke of high priced potions to magically take pain away. They brainstormed diagnosis with difficult and fatal sounding names.

"…be _this_ severe. Can't be…"

"Herniated disk sounds better but I…"

They just _touched _and Henry Spencer _screamed_.

"…be a Degenerate disk…"

"…relaxant…"

"…Diazepam…Methocarbanol…Orphenadrine…"

"…killer…"

"…Percocet…Oxycodon…Vicodin…"

A slender, clear and plastic needle appeared. A glass bottle, name—_Diazepam_. The syringe was filled. Skin pinched in. Skin pierced. Body relaxed.

"Hey," Shawn said quietly, as his vocal chords had not made their way back to their proper place.

Quickly, always quickly, always moving, they put the older man on a stretcher and began their trek back to the white van.

"Hey," the child tried again, this time louder. The man on the left turned to the child whose young freckled face was terror white, tear streaked and patchy red. "Hey, what's wrong with my dad?"

"We're not sure, kid."

"Is he going to be ok?"

"Your dad's going to be fine." This was now the red head in the front right. "He's in a lot of pain right now though. Where's your mom?"

"San Louis Obispo. Conference," he said automatically, evenly, deadly, trying to downplay the fear, the anger, the anxiety. He was 13 years young and crying was strictly forbidden.

The medic then said a word Shawn would have been heavily punished for repeating.

"Get in the van, kid. You'll have to answer a few questions." Gus and Shawn began their way to the bespeckled ambulance. Red Hair grabbed Gus' arm and stopped him dead with two solid, silver nails.

"Family only."


	3. Chapter 3

----------Musubi's Fried Rice Corner------------------------

Thank you all so much for the kind reviews! And readers too!

Here's chapter 3. It's a lot shorter than the last chapter and not as intense. We've got some expository chapters to come and then some intense stuff again. So if you like angst, keep 'em comin. lol.

Again, con-crits make me a better writer, so speak up if you've got something to say. ^_^

Disclaimer: Psych 'tisn't mine. Sad....I don't even own the DVD....

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His mother came, and he collapsed into her strong arms. He cried, cried and cried and cried. Tears that had been suppressed for his father were unleashed in the wake of his mother.

"What's wrong with Dad?" he asked, face buried in the fabric of his mother's shirt. She simply rubbed his back, trying to calm her son, trying to calm herself. She didn't know either, Shawn concluded. Nobody knew. Nobody knew if his dad would come from the hospital alive. True, he and his father didn't have the best relationship, but he didn't wish for his old man to die.

He felt guilty about the crap he'd given his father. He felt guilty about everything, even forging his father's signature so he could go on that stupid field trip three years ago. It clawed his insides, ravaged his stomach and blood. Nerves were now doormats, available in the open to be walked on, stepped on, crunched and mallet-ed.

* * *

_How many hats, Shawn?_

Four in this room. There's a three year old in the corner with a pink hat to keep her skin out of the sun. There's a military man inside in camouflage and shiny black shoes with a camouflage hat resting on his knee. A baseball cap turned backwards on a teenager asleep in his mother's arms. A beanie on the white kid next to the three year old.

Gus was there too, and cried with his best friend and the woman he'd grown to call his second mother. He cried for his second father. He cried because people he cared about were hurting and they were all entrenched in a divot of the unknown. No one knew where they were going or what had happened to lead to this point.

* * *

He was in the hospital for four days. The first day, they had him on heavy tranquilizers to calm the muscles in his back so he could finally rest. They monitored his vitals, making sure the pain didn't send the young man into cardiac arrest. It was just the family on this day, watching him from the ICU hallway, only a glass pane and door away.

The second day, he seemed stable, so they moved the older Spencer to a spot in the ER, just to be safe. He was allowed to see visitors, allowed to hold his wife and tell her everything was ok, to apologize to his son. People from the police department began coming in too: Karen Vick, his junior partner brought reading material and an update on the Reagan McDonald missing case. A few other sergeants dropped by, offering condolences, hugs, prayers and cards. They missed him and wished him a speedy recovery.

Just his family came the third day. He talked to Shawn for a bit, played their game of how many hats. The boy's remarkable memory and sensory awareness was shocking—and he only seemed to be getting better too. He just wished he could un-teach the boy his habit of placing his fingers next to his temples when he recreated a scene. Regardless—Shawn Spencer was going to be an amazing cop, maybe make officer. It wasn't said often enough, but Henry was proud of his mischievous son and had high hopes for him.

The fourth day and final day, the doctors gave Maddie and her husband a detailed explanation of the events that'd transpired. Slipped disk in the lower back. It was probably the result from his years of wear and tear on the field. The best fix to rid the problem? Spinal fusion surgery.

The pain came from the slipped disk grinding against the vertebrae either above or below. By fusing these disks together, the disks' motion would be eliminated. They wouldn't bump against each other and the risk for further injury could decrease as well.

Henry's mind didn't take in anything else the doctor's said, only focusing on the word "surgery." Spinal surgeries were dangerous, could leave individuals lame. What were the risks? He didn't care. Even if there was a small chance he'd leave the cutting room either paralyzed or dead, he wasn't going to take it. Give him a few pain killers here are there, there was no way he could live in a wheelchair.

"No surgery," he said finally, interrupting the doctor.

"Excuse me?" the young doctor asked, thinking his patient peculiar for declining such a life changing and potentially beneficial surgery.

"No surgery," Henry said once more, staring the doctor with the same look he gave apprehended criminals.

"Henry, please—think about what you're saying," Maddie said. His eyes softened and looked at his wife. His look was determined and stubborn. Mrs. Spencer sighed and turned her attention to the doctor. She asked him politely if he could give them time to discuss. Obliging, the young man exited, closing the door quickly, but not before he heard the small explosion of Volcano Maddie Spencer.


	4. Chapter 4

----------Musubi's Fried Rice Corner------------------------

Thanks again for the kind reviews. I know I've said that I finished the fic and should be updating more frequently. Sorry guys! . I keep poking at the chapters changing little things here and there. Ugh, the fic just won't stay finished!

Anyway, read, review--whatever. Hope you enjoy chapter 4. In my opinion, this is kinda low key expository. But let me know what you think, k? ^_^

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His dad didn't agree to the surgery. At first, the young Spencer was oddly proud of his old man. His dad was still the Tough Guy, someone who could take a punch and simply stand back up and fight again.

What was important was his father was coming home. On a cane, a wheelchair or standing, it didn't matter. His dad was coming home from a four night stay in the Santa Barbara City Hospital.

He could cry, but…he was so over that now.

Shawn and Gus waited in the living room, watching the old brown car roll up into the driveway. Excitement pure as adrenaline rushed through his lanky frame. He and Gus could hardly hold their smiles or excitement as they dashed through the living room outside. Shawn threw open the door, couldn't stop saying Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad! Never mind he was thirteen years old.

Gus stopped first at the front of the car.

"Gus…what's wrong?" Shawn asked.

"Your mom usually doesn't drive," Gus said simply. Shawn chortled at his friend's too-serious statement. So what Mom hardly drove the station wagon? Dad was still probably still knocked out from the drugs they gave him. It was heavy duty tranquilizer anyway.

Ch'nk the door slammed shut and Maddie Spencer stood tall, looking at her son(s) with stern eyes. There was anger and frustration and exhaustion burned in the iris, but Shawn couldn't tell if it was directed at him or at Gus.

"Whatever it is, Mom, it was Gus' idea. I was just being a good friend," Shawn stammered. "If it's broken, I'll fix it—I'll pay for it. I'll get a job, I'll—" His mother stopped him with a look and he backed off, knowing the consequences of agitating the family matriarch.

A sleeker, newer, black car pulled behind the Spencer station wagon.

"Gus, what're your parents doing here?" Shawn asked his friend quietly, hopefully quiet enough to keep his mother's frazzled emotions at bay.

"I'm not sure, man. But your mom is starting to scare me."

Chunk. Chunk. Two individuals emerged from the vehicle, Mr. and Mrs. Guster. They swiftly walked to the young boys and guided them back to the car.

"Thank you so much, Bill," Maddie said to Mr. Guster, tired, exhausted.

"It's no problem, Maddie. Just call when you're ready to have Shawn back."

"Mom, are you finally selling me to the Gusters? I'm hurt!" he offered his mother a wicked smile, hoping to ease some sort of response. His mother simply dropped and shook her head. She knew her Goose was just trying to make it better, make her smile, but in the wake of situations, she just couldn't—not even for her child.

Shawn noticed his mother was about two statements away from crying. He walked into the Gusters' car without further statement.

Wasn't all the bad stuff supposed to end when Dad got out of the hospital?

What's going on?

The car started up and drove away from his home. He caught a glimpse of his incapacitated father step from the car. The liquid movements were…different, not the stilted, methodical and plotting movements Henry Spencer was known for. His mother was distraught, started to say something, but Shawn couldn't hear or see—the family and house were out of sight.

How many hats, Shawn?


	5. Chapter 5

-------Musubi's Fried Rice Corner--------

Another update, woooo! ^_^ Thanks again to all the readers and reviewers!

This is the Big Reveal Chapter!!! Though this is a single chapter, it is a snippet, an example of many events which lead Shawn to hate heavy pain killers. I hope that I've conveyed the emotion needed for something as heavy as this. Whoever said writing what you know makes things easier and more authentic can kiss my butt. This and chapter 2 were the most based on real events and the hardest to write. Oh well...

Anyway: read, review, let me know what you think! We're heading to the end here folks. Two chapters to go. Thanks for stickin through.

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It didn't take long for an answer to come to Shawn Spencer. The curious boy was too smart for his own damn good. Snooping around when he didn't know the outcome, when he didn't know the answer had been carefully hidden from him for his own good. He was too much like his father, master sleuth and cop.

First he found the prescription medicine, two orange cylinders with white caps. The first held large, thick white cylindrical pills: Oxycodone, a pain killer. The second was a smaller blue square pill: Diazepam, a muscle relaxant.

Second, he began to notice behavioral changes. When his father took the medication, his thoughts and speech was slurred, as if heavily drunk. He said things, did things, that simply were _not_ in the likeness of his father. He talked for hours about a single cloud rolling by in the night sky. He spent an additional two hours another day talking about Shawn's achievements and failures, highlighting them and analyzing them with the third eye of a heavy pain killer and muscle relaxant.

Third, the yelling. His parents argued, yes, but they hardly raised their voices at each other and even if they did—volumes retracted after some time. Arguments now, when dad was sober and lucid, were long, brutal and loud. He could hide in his room, volume from his 8-Track on maximum and he could hear them from the floorboards of his room. Sometimes he felt the house and windows shake from their screaming. Mom didn't like the medication; didn't like the person her husband became on them. Dad attempted to convince her that nothing had changed and that he was normal and fine.

Sometimes he went to Gus' house to just _get away_ from all their bull crap. Other times, when he couldn't or Gus was busy, he'd be in his room. Occasionally, when he was alone in his room with his comic books as his only consoler, he wished for a younger sibling—someone he could share this time with. Other times, he wouldn't wish this burden on additional family members: real or imagined.

_How many hats, Shawn?_

_**_

_***_

_**_

_***_

He was fourteen, fifteen in two weeks.

His father slept when he took the medicine, not even having the energy or lucidity to sit up and play how many hats.

_How many hats in the room, Shawn? _

_What's different about the room now, Shawn? _

_How many bubbles are in my Coke now, Shawn? _

The rim of his eyes burned. He reached out for the times before, reached for the man that once was his father and held a whisper, letting the tender shadows slip through the gapes between his fingers.

His jaw clenched, once again evaded by carnivorous prescriptions. Prescriptions that didn't need to be taken in the bulk they were taken. Prescriptions that didn't need to be taken in frequency. Prescriptions that were just supposed to aid, not be a crutch, the only thing that pulled a person through the day.

"Shawn, cannu ge' me some wa'er?" his father asked from the couch. The old man's eyes were plastered and glossed over, all focus on the buzzing television set. He didn't realize his son was no where near the kitchen or anywhere near the living room. The child had been sitting on the stairs, watching, just watching.

The man stirred, and looked around for his son. "Shawn…Shawn, where you go? Di'ju bri' me my wa'er? Shawn?"

The child stood, face stoic, fists clenched, nerves bunched cables. It's not him, Shawn, he tried to reassure himself. That's not your dad. Your dad is intelligent, and is usually capable of getting his own glass of water unless he's teaching you something. That's not your father.

"Shaaaaaaawn," the voice that sounded like his dad's but was not his dad's whined. "If you had asked for some water, I would have gotten it for you already."

Eyes burned. Fists clenched. Easy breathes.

_How many hats, Shawn?_

Grab a glass. Get the ice. Pour the water.

_How many hats, Shawn?_

He returned to the living room, a glass of ice cold water ready for his father. "I got it for you, Dad," he said with the precision of a bomb diffuser, with the range of a robot. There was no response from the couch. Upon further inspection, the man in the couch was sound asleep, a slight fall of droll gathering in the corner of his tired, cracked mouth.

The younger Spencer returned to the kitchen, disposed the water in the sink and escaped outside the claustrophobic house, slamming the screen door behind him. Dad was in another drug induced coma. Mom was away at work. There wasn't anyone to berate him for noise. He should have enjoyed that bit of silence.

He didn't. He actually missed his father's criticisms.

He looked to the horizon, the setting sun over the Pacific Ocean. The sky was fiery embers slowly being smoldered by the heavy veil of night. Stars began to twinkle through the fog as it rolled over the coast, the ocean and its lazy waves rolling on shore.

He ran.

_How many hats, Shawn?_

_**_

_***_

_**_

_***_

Took everything and bolted. Ran until he could run no more. Grass clippings kissed his jeans, grass eventually turning into brown sand. Brown sand turning into a plank of driftwood. _Oof_, he silently fell into the rough and smooth ground. Sand tucked into the tendrils of his hair, ears, neck, eyes, eye lashes, nose. It would take forever for the sand to finally wash away, but he didn't care. The cool sand was better than the inferno churning through his humors.

He rolled to his back, arms spread eagle. He looked up the sky— to a Deity he never really believed in and asked It, why. What had the Spencer Clan done to deserve this type of punishment? It couldn't possibly think that they enjoyed this. It, the fatherly image hailed by millions as a benevolent, kind, merciful thing, could not have thought this was kind and benevolent. If It wanted to challenge his faith, the young Spencer figured It was wasting Its time. He didn't have faith. There was no need for it in a crazy, unpredictable, often cruel world that left his father incapacitated, mother constantly angry and Shawn trapped somewhere in the middle.

They argued all the time. It was always the same argument too—drugs or no drugs. Maddie Spencer wanted her husband to get the surgery and stop this madness. Henry Spencer was certain his time for surgery had long past. The only thing he could do was ride through the pain and take his retirement when the time came.

There wasn't any riding through though. It was always pain, pills, sedation, return. The sedation, the missing work for days (sometimes weeks), the threat of him loosing his job, the piling unpaid bills—all playing chips in Maddie's favor should the marriage fail. Should she do what Shawn wished he could do—walk away.

Shawn was almost fifteen, he couldn't even emancipate himself. He'd glanced over his school records. He only had a few classes to take before he could graduate. If he followed his plan, he could graduate at seventeen. Yah, seventeen...two years, he could do this for two years.

Seventeen: the Disappointment Speeches stop (he's catalogued 23 different versions).

Seventeen: his disappointment stops.

Seventeen: putting the necessary distance between his mother and the man who was once his father, but had become too reliant, too quick to use legal opiates to rid himself of a pain he could have eradicated but was too stubborn to go under the knife.

Seventeen: two years away from silence and happiness.

Seventeen: two years away from packing up and leaving the shabby little coast town for something Bigger and Better.

A weak guttural noise burst to the surface in choppy waves. The noise became tears. Tears became the sobs he refused to show anyone, refused to shed in That House. The sobs became the blind sweetness of sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

-------Musubi's Fried Rice Corner--------

So...my computer's pretty much dead and in the hands of the Geek Squad. I'm using people's computers I can get my hands on and directly cross-posting from Psychfic.

Story notes? Here's where all the strings get tied and the summary starts to make sense. Warnings: indirect Shawn whump.

Thanks again for all your kind, kind reviews. :) And for those of you following along at home, I thank you too! We're almost done. You could actually call this the last chapter and chapter 7 as the epilogue. But, eh, who's counting? lol ^_^

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Juliet O'Hara hadn't spoke, would not speak. Her blue eyes flashed, her head cocked and nodded occasionally. She would lick her lips and twist her left hand's ring. She never spoke though. Never spoke and never showed anything but tangible understanding and empathy, enough to move his heart—make it explode in gratitude. For this, her silence, Shawn Spencer was thankful. If he had lost his rhythm due to conversation, he wouldn't have revealed that night. He probably would have fallen on his old methods and avoided the subject all together.

_How many hats, Shawn?_

He wasn't a child anymore—though he certainly acted the part. Shawn always had a smartass remark, some quick slip of an 80s reference only a few recognized and fewer understood. He always had something to say to psychologically run away from the problem at hand. He said it was his "coping mechanism" and being an ass helped him work. It just hid the problem for a while, putting it on hold until the time would come where he'd have to deal with that he strew aside.

That time was now.

"Dad said he wasn't too keen on taking the medication, but every once and a while, he'd take them. Mom said she never wanted to see those in the house again after the third episode. She hated the state it put him in as much as I hated it. Towards the end…" he paused, letting the memories melt like toffee, letting them flood back slowly.

He sighed and evaded his eyes from Juliet. It was…too much, too soon, too just everything.

"In the end, it was either her or the drugs." He stopped, "yeah, there were other things wrong with the marriage too, but I always thought that with counseling they'd be able to get over it."

He paused again, taking in a sharp breath when Juliet placed her hand over his, enveloping his ice cold extremity with hot warmth. His weak, tired hazel eyes met her dully vibrant blue ones, eyes that asked him to continue only when he was ready. Eyes that reassured him that if he couldn't tell the story now, she wouldn't press him or force him to explain everything at that moment.

"Actually, when I was a senior in high school, right after he arrested me…he, uh…he had another episode. Sneezed or something, moved in just the right way and he was gone. Absolutely in pain. Went back to the hospital, took the medication again. He was on it for six months that time. During that time frame, Mom had filed for divorced, won her settlement and moved out. Dad was barely cognizant for any of it.

He paused for a whisper of a moment, allowing Juliet time to prepare for impact of the next words' blow and for Shawn to prepare the words.

"I hated him," he said finally, low and deep. "I hated him for who he became, for pretending nothing had changed. He passed everything off as me being ungrateful or overly perceptive of nothing. But every time I saw him since that time…I could only think of that day. Of the dozens of other days when he would just sit there, strung out on the prescriptions.

"I hated him."

O'Hara's eyes fell to the linoleum floor. That was that, his sole reason for being so against the hospital's recommendation.

Shawn Spencer didn't want to become his father, in any essence of the word. In his youth, he ran away for 11 years just to berate Henry Spencer—did everything to prove to his father he could survive without having a titanium structured life. As a turbulent 30-something, he ventured into the fake psychic business to bring income, and she knew he got some kind of enjoyment turning Henry's childhood lessons into a profitable game.

She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. Though Henry Spencer had been six feet under for two years, though their relationship had mended to a comical Homer-Bart semblance, though they had come so far—he still fought against becoming his father. Her grip around his hand tightened with this realization and her breath stagnated with breaths caught by tears. _Don't cry Jules, _Shawn thought desperately. _Don't cry._

"And that's why you won't take what you need to take now, huh, Shawn?" She looked at him, eyes now just beginning to redden; the whites were pink. She slid up the hospital bed, closer to his face on the doctor's black stool. She caressed his head dressings, the taught pieces of gauze holding the stitches in the back of his head together. The back of her fingers grazed the healing scrapes and bruises on his face. Touched his cast arm, bones held together with tiny needles, sticking from the skin like knitting needles impaling a ball of yarn.

She could only imagine the state of his hips, back, legs. She'd seen the MRIs.

"You're in pain, Shawn," her silky voice snagged on the nail of her vocal chords. "Please, just take the medication until they schedule your surgery."

"Jules, I'm not having surgery either."

Tears poured down her face, desperate, desperate stupid tears flowed. She couldn't stop them; the wall had already been broken.

"Shawn…please. Be rational…get surgery. Take the damn pills." She looked at him; spoke only once the tears had been wiped clean from her cheekbones. "Your vertebra is cracked. If the doctors don't fuse it, it's just going to get worse. Maybe to the point where you can't walk anymore, Shawn. Is that what you want? Your children need a father who can walk."

"_Our_ children need a father who's cognizant. Not a person who's hopped up on pain killers and muscle relaxants. A person who's there _all_ the time, not just some of the time."

"They need a father who's not suffering from chronic pain because he was too stubborn to have surgery and to take medication temporarily."

"Jules—"

"Mom, is everything ok?" a young female voice asked at the door. Shawn and Juliet turned their attention from each other to the brown haired, freckle faced eleven year old girl at the door. She stopped, mouth agape, noting the tears on her mother's face. "Mom, why are you crying?" She looked at her father, bedridden and hooked to a variety of beeping and lit up machines. "Daddy, is everything ok?"

"Everything's fine Ash," Shawn said softly.

"It's nothing sweetie. Please, just go back outside and wait with your brother and sister." Their eldest exited the room. Her mother, his wife collapsed into tears again, crying into the balls of her hands. "Shawn, if you don't get this fixed, you'll be a walking dead man. With the crack bone rubbing against your nerves, you're risking full body paralysis."

"If I go into surgery, I risk paralysis too!" his voice rose and Juliet pulled away, eyebrows slightly knotted. Eyes flashing. Fire, red hot—no, black—burning behind her blue irises (he swore he saw them turn pale green). "Medicine might have come a long way in the past 20 years, but back surgery can still result in full blown paralysis. I'm not going to risk that for the kids, Jules."

"Shawn, it's either take the medication for a little bit to keep you comfortable until the surgery, or take the medication for the rest of your life. And you _can't_ live with this kind of pain, Shawn!"

"I've lived with worse," his voice flat, edged with irritation. Anger rising. Silently, he screamed _you wouldn't understand._

"_You_ lived with _emotional_ pain _you_ were too stubborn to attempt to fix on your own. You were too stubborn to grow up and realize that people _make mistakes._" Now her voice rose, words fueled by the fire in her eyes. She knew they stung because she knew, he knew she was right. _Emotional pain might be hard, but if you can't walk it's a different story _she rebutted silently. She stood, doing what Shawn couldn't do as if to emphasize her point. "Don't try to hold onto a hatchet that's long been buried."

"But—"

"Shawn." Juliet's shoulders slumped; her blonde hair lost its sheen in the medical room. She was tired just so so so tired. She didn't want to argue with her husband anymore. She didn't want him to be in pain.

She wanted Life to go back to what it was two weeks ago—him playing with their youngest daughter, teaching their son how to lighten up (surely that boy was Gus' and there was a mix up in the delivery room; there was no way a Spencer could sit still for that long). He'd play catch in the backyard with Ash because he was usually at home saving the kids from themselves while Juliet was saving Santa Barbara from itself.

Just two weeks ago.

Be strong for the kids. Be strong for your husband. Be strong for yourself. The latter mantra had cracked and with it, the tears she'd been trying to hold back slowly trickled into succumbing to sobs.

"Jules…Juliet, come on, don't be—"

She closed the distance between them with a warm, desperate kiss. He closed his eyes, letting the emotions she was trying to convey in words finally break the levee. He caressed her face, wiping the tears from her cheek.

"Mom?" It was Ash again. Juliet pulled back, her attention now on her daughter—a moment away from her irrational husband. Ironic, it was his irrationalities, his idiosyncrasies that originally attracted her to him. Now, it would be the razor that'd cut the family bonds. "Mom, Brandon's anti'nizing Cassie."

"Ant_ag_onizing, hun," Juliet corrected, giving her daughter a short smile, trying—needing—to stop crying. Needing to be the column her children would lean on, all four wondering what would become of their protector. "I'm coming." She kissed her husband's forehead in adieu. "I love you, Shawn."

"Love you too, Jules." His chest felt hallow: heart, lungs, blood void. Only a cold recognition that he was hurting his wife and children to fill it.

"Brandon, stop being a pest to your sister. She's only two. Come on kids, say good bye to Daddy."

They came, Brandon and Cassie Lynn. Brandon tried to keep up his "tough nine-year old" face. He'd been crying, but those "girly" emotions had been encased somewhere, far from the surface. Brandon gave a quick hug—embrace, goodbye—knowing if his father held him longer, he'd crack. He wasn't a kid anymore, though not even a double-digit age. He intended not to act as one. He mumbled his goodbye and practically sprinted out of the room.

Cassie was too young to really understand what had happened, wasn't old enough to know that her father was a fool for not taking a life saving operation. She was too young to know her father might be wheeled from this room, rather than walk. She didn't know any of this and perhaps that's why she held so tightly, so warmly, so innocently, giving a butterfly kiss on his nose. "Love you, Daddy," she said simply, giving a tiny smile, hopped off her father's hospital bed.

The Spencer clan left and with it—the only warmth he'd felt in days since the accident. He felt like Rose on Titanic—as pathetically _un_manly the analogy was—watching Jack fall into the icy Atlantic. Goodbye my hope, my love, my life.

A white clad individual entered the room. His doctor. Doctor somebody. He hadn't read the nametag, had no intention of having this man's name forever engrained in his psyche. The young man was blonde, no—sandy blonde, like Cassie's hair. The man read a chart or another paper on a clip board. Pulled the paper up, continued reading and sighed. Looked up at Shawn, mouth smiling, but overall expression saying, _another surgery refuser? God I don't want to do this tonight._"So, Mr. Spencer," the doctor said cheerfully, Spanish accented voice white cake at a funeral wake. "Wanna tell me why you're so opposed to the surgery?"

Or maybe Cassie just _knew_ he needed that last familial touch to make his final decision.

_How many hats, Shawn?_


	7. Chapter 7

-------Musubi's Fried Rice Corner--------

Last chapter!!!

Finally got my hand on a spare computer.

Thanks to all who've stuck by me through the last six chapters. You guys are awesome.

Not too much going on in this chapter. It's a happy ending, I promise! After all that angst, I figured this would be a good way to make everything come 'round circle.

Once again, thanks so much for all your reviews and reads. I've had fun writing this, especially this chapter.

xxMusubixx

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If one included rest time and all the physical therapy after, Shawn Spencer was in the hospital for four continuous months. The doctors spent ten hours in the operating room, fusing Spencer's vertebrae together. Maybe it was more, the little hand pointed to the number of hours you'd been waiting for your loved one, right?

He would walk, but with slight pain and most likely with the assistance of a cane. The addition of this "accessory" was something both Henry and Shawn Spencer could bond over hating. Over time though, the scars healed. After two years, he didn't need the cane anymore, though walked with a slight limp, similar to the edginess of Henry Spencer's stride.

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It was autumn. Red and golden leaves began their dissent from their leafy thrones to the surface of grass and grit. The environment was ablaze, air crisp and clouding by the lips of individuals, constantly reminding them the reality of the temperature and that they were lucky to be alive.

Juliet donned a wide smile as she threw an oversized, over-soft softball to her children in the yard. His wife didn't appear a day over thirty and he told her as often as he could. She was beautiful when they met and twenty years, three children later, she still was the most beautiful woman in the world. Her wits were still about her, often catching Shawn's snarky remarks with a counter usually as biting.

_Catch the ball, throw it to Cassie._

Over the years, they'd watched Gus start his own family, Chief Vick retire, Lassiter take her place, Juliet take his. They'd been together when Shawn's father finally died and when Juliet's parents passed on too. Maddie was still kicking, but her health was starting to fade and they knew there wasn't much time left.

The family took vacations occasionally, dropping into Los Angeles to go to Disneyland or a baseball game. Juliet loved baseball and hooked the kids on it; Ash had been playing since she was in diapers. Shawn went mostly for ballpark nachos, which he swore were better than regular store-bought nachos. And to watch Ash play.

But mostly the nachos.

_Catch the ball, throw it to __Brandon__._

Shawn and Gus eventually shut down Psych Investigations as Gus was "too busy" setting the pharmaceutical sales world on fire. For Shawn, being physically limited to a slow trot or brisk walk made chasing bad guys pretty difficult.

Shawn bounced from job to job and eventually went back to school after his wife's nagging, Gus's begging and (he swears) his father's posthumous pestering. After three bitter years of online courses, Shawn was finally Dr. Spencer, Ph. D.

Oh, you need ten years of school to get a Ph. D? Fine…then just Mr. Spencer with a Bachelor's Degree in child psychology _teaching_ high school students the difference between the hypothalamus and cerebellum.

It was a nice, relatively steady job and he got summers off and various other established breaks—what else could he ask for? And, between teaching kids the make up of the brain and the basis of behavior, he taught them practical things, like: how to ask a woman on a proper date, how to notice little details most people missed. Most importantly: how to pick yourself up after making a mistake, how to loose with dignity and how to ask for help even if you really didn't want it from your ex-cop of a father.

_Catch the ball, throw it to Ash._

Shawn, after thirty minutes, had to sit this out. He wasn't sure if it was left over back pain or just old age.

Cassie Lynne, his youngest daughter at nine, physically resembled her mother, but psychologically, was all his. Inheriting his eidetic memory and heightened sensory awareness, she could remember the details of a room down to a hair follicle and only had to see it twice. She was still a child though—afraid of the dark and spiders and always a kiss or hug from Mom and Dad made all the world's ailments better.

Brandon was almost out of high school, a junior. Slow, meticulous and easy tempered, Shawn often joked that Brandon was switched at birth with Gus' child. The boy's slender frame was often underestimated as his strength came from his words (just like his father.) Shawn never made his pride questionable to his son, though if needed, he would tell his son to pick up the slack when he'd been caught doing something stupid. Brandon wanted to be like Mom, Head Detective of the Santa Barbara Police Department. Henry Spencer would be proud.

Ashley, the oldest, a senior all ready, was by far a Daddy's Girl. Shawn chuckled, thinking that the crafty teenager had him wrapped around her pinkie finger. She had inherited the Spencer Charm, knew it and used it to her full advantage, the list of young boys he had to scare off got longer every weekend. She was smart with numbers and money like her mother and was already filing for scholarships to Brown and UCLA. She wasn't sure what she wanted to do, but she knew she didn't want to be a cop—and that was just fine with Shawn Spencer.

"Cassie!" Shawn called to the pigtailed, freckled girl. She turned and heeded her father's call.

"Yes Daddy?" He motioned for his youngest to sit on his lap, which she did.

"Close your eyes sweetie."

"Not this game again," she whined, so much like he protested against his father's requests. _You reap what you sow, _he thought, chuckling to himself.

"Oh you love it, come on. Now close your eyes." She did, biting her bottom lip in concentration.

"How many hats, Cassie?"


End file.
